Fall In The High Sierra

A Stone In Heaven, XIV.

This concluding chapter begins:

"Fall comes early in the High Sierra." (p. 229)

- and ends:

"They walked on into the autumn." (p. 234)

P. 235 is a picture of a couple walking away from us among trees with falling leaves.

Have we got the message yet? This chapter is the end of a novel and of the seven-volume Dominic Flandry series and is set late in Flandry's life. The Chronology in The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1979) had stated "story on Flandry's old age planned." (p. xii) 

Especially in the concluding chapters, the illustrations are particularly appropriate to the narrative at that point in the text. I will have to reread the text of Chapter XIV tomorrow, a new month.

Creativity And Cliches

In a cinema on Marketgate, Penrith, I used to watch cinema serials where an episode ended with the hero falling off a cliff -

- and the following episode began with him grabbing hold of a bush growing out from just under the edge of the cliff.

This is a cliche but authors like Poul Anderson do it well. We think that Flandry and Chives are about to die but Banner, disobeying orders, returns to rescue them. (A Stone In Heaven, XIII.) The cliche works best when we really do think that the character has died. See Dead, Not Really.

When attacking Cairncross's base on a Ramnuan moon, Flandry deduces that the Duke's trained men will be spread thin so that the base will be guarded by computers, easier to fool. We might skip past such well-observed details when reading but Anderson's texts are packed with them, nevertheless.

New Civilizations

A Stone In Heaven, XIII.

(In the attached image, Ramnuans on onsars approach the Lord of the Volcano, although this was way back in VIII.)

We have previously discussed Flandry's elegiac thoughts in Chapter XIII but perhaps not this one:

"...new, perhaps more hopeful civilizations would come to birth in the future, and he had been among those who guarded their womb." (p. 215)

Back cover blurb rightly described this novel as the culmination of a series. However, it is also the first of six installments collected together as Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume VII, Flandry's Legacy. Flandry's thought quoted above anticipates certain later installments where new civilizations are built and grow. Even during the Long Night after the Fall of the Terran Empire, Roan Tom initiates an interstellar alliance that could form the basis of the Allied Planets, the first of the post-Technic interstellar civilizations. (These civilizations are post-Technic not in the sense of being post-technological but only in the sense that the Technic civilization that had succeeded the Terrestrial Western civilization has come to an end with the Fall of the Empire.)

The Spenglerian "Fall of the West" is a big concept in James Blish's Cities In Flight Tetralogy. Read it also.

Approaching The End Of A STONE IN HEAVEN

Googling for images can have random results. I had another search for A Stone In Heaven internal illustrations and found two more which had not come up for me before. One (see the attached image) shows a scene that I had described in "Lamps, Frescos And Stoves," here, so it would have been helpful to have had it at that stage in the first place.

I am rereading the elegiac closing chapters of A Stone In Heaven and expect to find something new to post about them. After that, where can we go next but back into the very rich text of The Game Of Empire, to complete the Admiral Flandry diptych? Experience so far shows that even a text reread relatively recently can yield much material for new blog posts. There might be an end to this process but, if so, we have not reached it yet.

"How Many Heads Do Ymirites Have?" by Sean M. Brooks

One of the things I most admire about Dr. Paul Shackley's work in the Poul Anderson Appreciation blog is the detailed attention he pays to the texts of the works of Poul Anderson.  Far more attention than what I have usually done since the last time I was writing letters to Anderson himself (and before my participation on this blog).

 

Currently, I have been slowly rereading the stories about Dominic Flandry, set during the era of the Terran Empire in Anderson's Technic Civilization series.  And while doing so I have been striving to pay attention to, and appreciate, even the smallest details to be found in those stories. One example, from the Gregg Press (August, 1979) edition of AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE, is from the beginning of Chapter II of HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE (also called WE CLAIM THESE STARS), in an artificial satellite orbiting Jupiter called the Crystal Moon:  "He wasted no time on excuses but almost ran to the cloakroom. His feet whispered along the crystalline floor, where Orion glittered hundreds of light years beneath."  In all my previous readings of HUNTERS I don't think I had ever really NOTICED that bit about Flandry racing along a crystalline floor, beneath which Orion could be seen hundreds of light years away!

 

But the textual detail I wish to pay special attention to is a truly obscure one: how many heads do Ymirites have?  The only time we see any members of this hydrogen breathing non human intelligent race is in HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE.  And while I was reading Chapter IV of that story I noticed a tiny but intriguing detail (quoting from page 115 of the Gregg Press edition): "Flandry looked into the screen.  The Ymirite didn't quite register on his mind.  His eyes weren't trained to those shapes and proportions, seen by that weirdly shifting red-blue-brassy light. (Which wasn't the real thing, even, but an electronic translation.  A human looking straight into the thick Jovian air would see only darkness.)  "Hello, Horx," he said to the great black multi- legged shape with the peculiarly tendrilled heads."

 

It was that last bit, "...the peculiarly tendrilled heads," which caught my eye. How literally are we supposed to understand that word "heads"?  Do Ymirites have at least two heads?  We see Flandry conversing with two Ymirites in HUNTERS, his guide/interpreter Horx and the Ymirite governor of Jupiter, Thua.   But no mention is made of those beings having multiple personalities if they have more than one head, which is what we see in human conjoined twins.  Rather, if Ymirites have more than one head, only one personality is seen as using and speaking with those heads.

 

I was surprised!  In all my previous readings of HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE, I had never noticed that bit about Horx having "...peculiarly tendrilled heads."  I wondered if that might have been just a misprint for "head" and decided to see what the other copies I have of that story said at exactly the same place in those texts.

 

From Chapter IV of WE CLAIM THESE STARS (Ace Books: 1959), page 26 : "Hello, Horx," he said to the great black multi-legged shape with the peculiarly tendrilled heads."

 

AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE (Chilton Books: 1965), from Chapter IV of HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE,  page 100: "Hello, Horx," he said to the great black multi-legged shape with the peculiarly tendrilled heads."

 

WE CLAIM THESE STARS (London, Dobson Books: 1976 [rpt. of the 1959 Ace Books text]), from Chapter IV, page  26: "Hello, Horx,"  he said to the great black multi-legged shape with the peculiarly tendrilled heads."

 

ALL the copies I have of HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE have "heads" at precisely this same part of the text. Based on this evidence, I have to conclude "heads" was not a misprint for "head."  I feel forced to at least tentatively say Ymirites have more than one head. Even though that single sentence I have been quoting is the only time where Ymirite heads are mentioned.  And Ymirites are not described as being any kind of conjoined twins, two different persons sharing the same body or parts of bodies.

 

Despite everything, was  this use of "heads" still a mistake? Did Poul Anderson actually intend "head"?  If he meant the former, he certainly left us a mystery!  All the other few mentions of Ymirites in the Technic stories (such as in ENSIGN FLANDRY or THE GAME OF EMPIRE), says nothing about their bodies and appearances. E.g., this is what we see near the beginning of Chapter 9 of ENSIGN FLANDRY, about the Ymirites, as Lord Hauksberg's ship was traveling from Starkad to Merseia:  "Once, also, another vessel passed within a light-year and thus its "wake" was detected.  The pattern indicated it was Ymirite, crewed by hydrogen breathers whose civilization was nearly irrelevant to man or Merseian."

 

I have to admit that these questions would only be of interest to Andersonian obsessives! If I had noticed this detail and thought of writing to Anderson about it while he was alive, I think he would most likely have replied it was "head" he meant at that part of WE CLAIM THESE STARS/HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE.  Another way of settling this question, after Anderson died, would be to check what the original manuscript of HUNTERS had at this part of the text.  Assuming that manuscript still exists, of course.

 

I think some commentators who discuss science fiction stories have complained that too many writers make their non-human aliens look too much like  human beings.  A hydrogen breathing, multi-legged intelligent species with "peculiarly tendrilled heads" could not be considered as humanoid by any reasonable interpretation of that word.  Poul Anderson's Ymirites cannot be accused of being too humanoid looking.

Sometimes They Get It Right

On the top of the front cover of Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1979):

"THE SPLENDOR, WONDER & TERROR OF THE STARFLUNG

"POUL ANDERSON TAKES YOU THERE!" - Philip Jose Former

 

In the lower right hand corner:

 

"Spans, illuminates and completes the magnificent future history of the Polesotechnic League"

 

On the back cover of Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven (New York, 1979):

 

THIS IS THE CULMINATION OF THE GREATEST ADVENTURE SERIES IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION

 

Sometimes they get it right.

Yewwl And Genesis

A Stone In Heaven, XII.

This chapter ends with a by now familiar Biblical reference.

Yewwl's surviving companions flee. She takes the gun that killed her son and glides to attack an approaching human one-man flyer. Mortally wounded by what feels like a hailstorm, she remains aloft long enough to see and kill the pilot. As his craft hits and sinks through the ice while more flyers approach, she swerves around so that she too will fall into the opened water because:

"She would lay her bones to rest above those of the man she had slain to her wounding. Oath-sister, farewell." (p. 194)

See A Man To My Wounding.

We can trust Poul Anderson to hit us in just the right way at the end of a chapter and of a character's life.

Interrupted Dialogues

A Stone In Heaven, XI.

Have you had the experience of answering a hostile question with "No...," intending to add, "...but..." and explain further but been interrupted after the "No..."? Yewwl tells her companions that their armed guide is sending for people to arrest them but, before she can add that surrender is advisable, her son attacks and is killed. Great! We have already been told how Ramnuans respond to bereavement. Yewwl's knife goes into Skogda's killer. Before Banner can talk Yewwl out of going berserk, she too is interrupted... All the conflict comes to a head. But Yewwl has learned enough to confirm Flandry's and Banner's suspicions. Flandry must move against the Duke. We can tell from the page count that the novel approaches its climax.

Cold Wind From The Wastes

A Stone In Heaven, XI.

In Dukeston on Ramnu, Cairncross employs native labor to manufacture war materials, thus avoiding a traceable investment in automated factories. Hostile nature comments on hidden militarism:

"There a frozen river gleamed. Across a bridge, Dukeston reared and roared and glared. Westward lay only night, wild valleys, tors, canyons, cliffs, tarns. A cold wind crept out of the wastes and ruffled her pelt. The few stars she could see were as chill, and very small. Banner said they were suns, but how remote, then, how ghastly remote...." (p. 185)

From Yewwl's present perspective, other suns are few, chill, small and ghastly remote. And this would not be a Poul Anderson description without a cold wind creeping out of the wastes.

This is a single scene in a single novel. As regards the packaging of the entire Technic History, I now think that two ...Of The Polesotechnic League titles (Rise... and Decline...) could be followed by three ...The Terran Empire titles (Rise Of..., Outposts Of... and After...) interpolated, so to say, with three ...Flandry titles (Young..., Captain... and Admiralty). That way, readers would see at a glance what they were getting.

A Perfect Spy

A Stone In Heaven, XI.

How much genuine spying happens in spy fiction? And how is spying enhanced in an sf context? (There is also spy-fi.)

Yewwl is the perfect spy to send into a human industrial base. She is an ignorant native - with Miriam "Banner" Abrams seeing what she sees and guiding her inwardly. Yewwl has "...Banner with her in spirit..." (p. 170) The spiritual/quasi-religious aspect of the shared experience is explicit.

Initially, Yewwl has problems even seeing things:

"...hard to see; the mind could not take hold of forms so outlandish." (p. 170)

We have had this point before. See At First Sight.

Before long, Yewwl and her companions turn out to be very poor at spying. Although their guide does not understand their speech, they are unable to conceal their tension or to maintain the pretense that they are naive sightseers. But they see enough.

The 1950's II

One of my sisters found a facebook page of photographs from the town where we grew up in the 1950s and early '60s. See the attached image and also The 1950's.

This again encourages me to imagine living through the '50s and '60s in the Time Patrol timeline but not necessarily as a Patrol agent. Presumably civilians from time traveling eras are free to settle down in the past as long as the Patrol knows when they are and that they are not up to no good? (Something that Jack Finney would have liked to do.) Robert Heinlein made a good start to writing about Lazarus Long revisiting the period of his childhood, then - - - - ed it up big time.

Manse Everard lives through a large part of the twentieth century that is known to us. He stayed abreast of his readers' present and did not reveal any easily contradicted details about the immediate future. The Time Patrol series does contradict history in two ways:

it incorporates Sherlock Holmes as a historical figure, not a fictional character;

knowledge of earlier periods may have advanced since Anderson wrote the series.

That second point is part of sf. It also applies to knowledge of Mars etc.

A Curious Parallel

Endless posts about Poul Anderson's Technic History are the equivalent on this blog of endless Star Trek reruns on TV. Star Trek, being multi-authored, out-competes Anderson in quantity although not in anything else.

Poul Anderson contributed to several other fictional universes although not to Star Trek. James Blish's original Star Trek novel, Spock Must Die!, is prima facie non-canonical because it closes down the Klingon Empire way earlier than screen Star Trek. Robert Feist's Technic History story, "A Candle," is prima facie non-canonical because it treats the Chereionites as still extant, not extinct. This is a curious parallel.

See "A Candle" by Robert E. Feist.

"A Candle" describes the Chereionites as:

"'...the intellectual power within the Merseian Empire.'" (p. 303)

They are not. A single surviving Chereionite uses his planet's resources to dupe the Merseians into thinking that a planetary population is leading their intelligence service.

Common Languages

(i) See Temporal, Esperanto And Latin.

(ii) Two Europeans of different nationalities conversed in their common language, English, so, of course, I understood them.

(iii) Two Ramnuans from widely separated areas converse in Anglic!

(iv) In 49 A.D., west of the Elbe and south of the future site of Hamburg, three Time Patrol agents converse in twentieth-century English. Everard reflects:

"English will sort of play the role that Latin does today. Not for as long a while."

-Poul Anderson, "Star of the Sea" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 467-640 AT 11, p. 563.

We need a politically neutral universal international second language.

Five First Person Narrators In Poul Anderson's History Of Technic Civilization

(i) The crew of a space boat sent down from the Grand Survey spaceship Olga makes first contact with Ythrians but the story is narrated by the planetologist who remains in the Olga.

(ii) The third person account of Peter Berg's experience with Ythrians on Avalon is framed by an unnamed character's first person accounts of his conversations with Berg.

(iii) While he is a student on Earth, the Wodenite Adzel sings Fafnir and parades as the Chinese dragon but the story is narrated by the human student who persuades Adzel to play these roles.

(iv) A friend of the father of a man who has had a bad experience on the planet Cain narrates how Nicholas van Rijn explains what happened on Cain.

(v) Manuel Argos leads a slave revolt and founds the Terran Empire but the story is narrated by one of Argos's followers in the revolt.

Obliqueness: first, Anderson imagines what happened to someone; then, he thinks of someone else to recount it.

A Supposed Entity

See:

God And Alien In Anderson's Technic Civilization 

Make Oneness 

The Ramnuan System

 

It is clear that the idea of "...a supposed entity dwelling beyond the stars..."

-A Stone In Heaven, VIII, p. 150 -

 

- had never occurred to any Ramnuan until Banner had mentioned it to Yewwl. Banner had said in IV that "'...Ramnuans don't have religion of human type...'" (p. 59)

 

Such non-theism, casually mentioned here, is a big problem in some other sf works:

 

in Anderson's "The Master Key," introducing the idea of God causes conflict on the planet Cain;

 

in James Blish's A Case Of Conscience, the good but Godless Lithians are a theological problem for a Jesuit scientist;

 

Harry Harrison has a short story where aliens, disturbed by a Christian missionary, test his teaching of the Resurrection by crucifying him.

 

CS Lewis assumes theism. When Ransom asks the Malacandrians whether their ruler, Oyarsa, made the world, they in turn ask whether the people in Thulcandra (Earth) do not know that Maleldil the Young made and still rules the world. Answers to further questions from Ransom disclose that Maleldil lives with the Old One who is not the sort that he has to live anywhere. The Malacandrians are telling Ransom what he had been wondering whether he should tell them.

Erannda And Ransom

Compare two reactions against scientific cosmology:

CS Lewis's Elwin Ransom quoted in Imaginary Science?

Poul Anderson's Erannda quoted in Chance-Formed, Impotent And Foredoomed

What is wrong with these guys? Scientists labor to learn the nature of the universe and this devalues the universe? Meanwhile, most of us prefer knowledge to ignorance.

See After Such Knowledge.

Lamps, Frescos And Stoves

A Stone In Heaven, VIII.

"Oil lamps brightened the meeting room in the hall, bringing frescos to vivid life. An iron stove at either end held outside chill at bay." (pp. 136-138)

Although that sounds colorful and comfortable, it had not been traditional before the advent of the star-folk. It was they who introduced lamps, stoves and:

"...maps, medicines, windmills, printing, water-powered machinery...above all, knowledge of this world and its universe, and an eagerness to learn more..." (p. 138)

Otherwise, the chamber is as of old. The Lord of the Volcano sits on a dais between carved beasts, before tiers of benches from which speakers step or glide down to the front.

Yewwl wins an argument, inspired by her inner voice. See A Satire.

The star-folk do not give the Ramnuans anything that they cannot make for themselves. Thus, without becoming dependent, the Ramnuans have gained:

better steel;

glassmaking;

painkillers;

deep surgery;

postal couriers.

Unseen Presence II

Since Poul Anderson quotes Percy Shelley twice in Trader To The Stars (see Percy Shelley), it seems appropriate to quote here another poetic "unseen presence":

"O wild West Wind, thou breath of autumn's being

"Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

"Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing..."

-see here.

 

Literary allusions abound. I would have gone on to say that Shelley's wife, Mary, wrote the first science fiction novel, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, asking whether it was right to create human beings, and that Poul Anderson wrote perhaps a culminating novel on this issue, Genesis. The first link above shows that I have already said this - but it bears repetition.

The Spirit is like a wind (Acts 2:2) and Clifford Simak connects wind with religious images. See A Winter Wind.

Unseen Presence

A Stone In Heaven, VIII.

"The unseen presence fell silent..." (p. 140)

Is a silent unseen presence always with us? If it is silent and unseen, then how does anyone know that it is there? Because it is sensed or felt:

"And I have felt

"A presence that disturbs me with the joy

"Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

"Of something far more deeply interfused,

"Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

"And the round ocean and the living air,

"And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;

"A motion and a spirit, that impels

"All thinking things, all objects of all thought

"And rolls through all things."

-William Wordsworth, here.

Religious experience is visionary, numinous or mystical. Mystical experience is of oneness whereas numinous experience is of awesome transcendence. No doubt reality is both.

No Answer

A Stone In Heaven, VIII.

Part of the experience of praying is not receiving an answer.

"'Where are you out there? Why do you not answer? What has happened?'"

-Poul Anderson, Three Worlds To Conquer (London, 1966), 3..., p. 29.

 

"'You know, too, that I am intimate with the chieftain of the star-folk, Banner herself.' Oath-sister, where are you? You promised you would join me.'" (pp. 138-139)

 

Fortunately, in the latter case, Yewwl is soon answered:

 

"She broke off. The voice was in her.

"'Yewwl, are you awake? Do you want me? Good.'" (p. 139)

 

I will be very interested if some day one of my gods responds like that.

Hunting II

Some alien species not only are descended from hunters but are still hunters.

Merseians say, "Hunt well." (See The Bible And Merseia.)

Ramnuans say, "'May you ever be swift in the chase...'" (A Stone In Heaven, VIII, p. 136)

Ramnuans who are not hunters, herders or Seekers are given less respect because they neither kill their own food nor range freely.

Ythrians hunt but wish each other good flight or fair winds forever.

For a succinct account of an Ythrian kill and a disgusting account of a kzinti kill, see Hunting.

Technological Prayer

A Stone In Heaven, VIII.

"...Banner, will you help me in turn? I'll need you to strengthen my wits against Erannda's. Banner, send your voice back into my head. Soon. Please." (p. 135)

How many kinds of prayer are there?

The prayer of monotheist faith;

pagan prayers to a god or all gods;

agnostic prayer to whatever gods may be.

Before meditating, I say the agnostic prayer. Sf readers know that it is at least conceivable that superhuman beings can telepathically tune in to our unspoken thoughts and respond somehow. I am not relying on this. Prayers can express aspiration. Thus:

"From delusion, lead us to truth.

"From darkness, lead us to light..."

 

- expresses aspiration toward truth and light.

Yewwl prays, knowing the Banner cannot hear her at that time. At other times, she experiences inner dialogue as some religious practitioners claim to do. She knows that Banner is wise but finite, like a pagan god.

Incomprehensible Humanity

A Stone In Heaven, VIII.

The Ramnuan Yewwl:

"(Maybe the most baffling and disturbing thing about the star-folk is the way they submit their wills, their fates, to the will of others, whom they may never even have met. That is, if I have discerned what Banner has tried over the years to explain to me. Sometimes I have hoped that I am mistaken about this.)" (p. 135)

The Ythrian, Hloch of the Stormgate Choth on Avalon:

"To explain the concept 'nation' is stiffly upwind."

-Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1969), p. 23.

 

Lemuel Gulliver contrasted European with Brobdignanian economics. In the latter, provinces with food surpluses send the surpluses to provinces with shortages. (I write from memory but that is the gist of it.) (Jonathan Swift's islands were like other planets.)

 

Olaf Stapledon commented on humanity by changing its context. Human beings artificially but hastily adapted to live on Neptune revert to animality but retain puzzling features of human behavior:

 

grazers suffering hardship gather and ululate cacophonously or sit and listen to a howling leader, then groan, whimper and foam;

 

some carnivora withdraw from activity to sit alone, watch and wait until forced back to action by hunger...

 

Ramnuans, Ythrians, Brobdignagians and Neptunations are both speculative alien species and vehicles for commenting on humanity.

Human-Ramnuan Communication

A Stone In Heaven.

When Banner speaks, only Yewwl hears her. (I, p. 9)

Banner sits before the screen and touches plates on chair arms. (VII, p. 124) Flandry sees the screen over her shoulder so it is not in her helmet as I had thought. It shows Yewwl's hand and a room occupied by two other Ramnuans, male and female. Banner addresses Yewwl. The male is said to react to Banner but how can he if she is audible only to Yewwl? OK. He reacts to the fact that Yewwl is visibly reacting to something, which happens to be Banner. By speaking deep in her throat, Yewwl can address Banner unheard by anyone else but she must explain to the other Ramnuans what is happening because she is visibly agitated, pacing back and forth in response to Banner's requests.

Cynthians In Space II

I want to post about Cynthians in space but find that I have already done so (see Cynthians In Space) and had even forgotten some of the details. The main points are:

Llynathawr

Vor

Ramnu

the trader team

the Terran Fleet at Avalon

Daedalus

Supermetals

and two that I missed before are:

the supply ship to Suleiman

the tramp freighter in which Flandry and Djana travel

Thus, the Cynthians are well integrated into interstellar society.

 

Also, van Rijn travels with some Ythrians and Flandry with some Betelgeuseans.

Four Senses In Wainwright Station

A Stone In Heaven, VII, p. 124.

In Miriam's centrum:

the chamber is dim;

meters flicker;

telltales blink;

the strong breeze outside is barely audible;

air is cool and moist;

currently, it smells of Terran seas;

the screen shows colors, perspectives and contours as perceived by a Ramnuan.

 

If we add that to the bright murals in the passages, then, in the space of two pages, Wainwright Station becomes a real place.

Murals

Inside the Earth-conditioned compound on Suleiman, there is a:

"...length of gaudy murals whose painting had beguiled much idle time over the years."

-Poul Anderson, "Esau" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 517-553 AT p. 525.

 

Inside Wainwright Station on Ramnu:

 

"Striding through rooms and passages, Flandry saw how the station had gone shabby-comfortable during centuries of use. Murals by amateurs brightened walls; planters held beds of flowers and fresh vegetables; playback simulated windows opening on a dozen distant worlds."

-A Stone In Heaven, VII, p. 121.

 

Centuries!

Dukeston

A Stone In Heaven, VII.

Dukeston, a Hermetian General Enterprises commercial base on the planet Ramnu, extracts from a sulfur-rich marsh:

fine-grained hardwood;

 

oricin, an antiobiotic effective against the Hermtian disease, cuprodermy;

 

other biologicals -

- which are cheaper to ship than to synthesize.

Also making Dukeston economically viable are palladium (scroll down) and other minerals from the nearby Chromatic Hills.

The base was located five thousand kilometers from Wainwright Station so that its cultural influence would not affect the natives studied by the xenologists who now include Miriam Abrams.

For dramatic events in Dukeston, see the link from "palladium," above.

Ramnu II

A Stone In Heaven.

"A nearby supernova causes a superjovian planet of 3000 Terrestrial masses to lose all its hydrogen and helium, over 90% of its mass, transforming it into Ramnu, a glacial globe of 310 Terrestrial masses, later inhabited by small, intelligent gliders."

That is how I summarized Ramnu in Unusual Heavenly Bodies. 

We are told that:

"...parameters were wrong for producing another Mirkheim." (VI, p. 84)

In other words, Poul Anderson was not going to repeat himself. Ramnu is described as if by one Terran Imperialist addressing others. For example, the pull of seven Terrestrial gravities:

"...forbids us to leave our home-conditioned base for any long while." (VI, p. 101)

Thus, here is another Technic historian although this time neither named nor identified.

More on Ramnu:

Ramnu 

The Golden Tide 

Ramnuan Society

The Ramnuan System 

Ramnuan Miscellania

Some Interesting Facts About Ramnuans

The Publication History Of A Future History

In "Tiger by the Tail" (Planet Stories, January 1951) and "Honorable Enemies" (Future Combined With Science Fiction Stories, May 1951), Captain Dominic Flandry defends the Terran Empire.

"Sargasso of Lost Starships" (PS, January 1952) describes the early Terran Empire whereas "The Star Plunderer" (PS, September 1952) features Manuel Argos, Founder of the Terran Empire.

"Starfog" (Analog, August 1967) refers to the Empire as "'...behind us. In space and time alike.'" (See Historical Descriptions.) Anglic is a dead language. We recognize some long term consequences of Flandry's actions although he is not remembered.

In A Stone In Heaven (Ace Books, 1979), Vice Admiral Flandry is a member of the Order of Manuel.

The Game Of Empire (Baen Books, 1985) features Fleet Admiral Flandry's daughter.

Thus, the publication history of Poul Anderson's Technic History begins in 1951 with Captain Flandry and ends in 1985 with Fleet Admiral Flandry although it also incorporates:

the Young Flandry Trilogy;

the history of the Polesotechnic League;

the careers of prominent League merchants, Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn;

the history of human interactions with the Ythrians.

Successful Revolution?

A Stone In Heaven, VI.

Flandry assesses Cairncross's chances of making a successful coup. Many Hermetians will support him. With a well-organized operation and a surprise strike, he will be able to kill Gerhart, proclaim himself Emperor and claim to be righting wrongs as well as providing able leadership.

"A lot of Navy officers will feel they should go along with him simply to end the strife before it ruins too much, and because he is now the alternative to a throne back up for grabs. Others, as his cause gathers momentum, will deem it prudent to join. Yes, Edwin has a good chance of pulling it off, amply good for a warrior born." (pp. 107)

Our present English monarchy dates not only from a Conquest but also from a "Glorious Revolution," a term applied in The Game Of Empire to Molitor's seizure of power.

• Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
  Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
  • Epigrams, Book iv, Epistle 5. Compare: "Prosperum ac felix scelus/ Virtus vocatur" ("Successful and fortunate crime/ is called virtue"), Seneca, Herc. Furens, ii. 250.
  • -copied from here.
    

 

 

Non-Biological Intelligence II

See Non-Biological Intelligence. 

I missed two other Andersonian kinds of non-biological intelligences:

The Holont

"star dwellers" on a pulsar

For the latter, see the 4th jump, here.

(It is convenient to be able to summarize a lot of information merely by linking to previous posts.)

Non-Biological Intelligence

Let me posit some propositions:

organisms interact with their environments;

consciousness is one kind of organism-environment interaction;

some consciousness is intelligent;

conscious organisms, particularly intelligent organisms, not only interact with but also act on their environments;

psychology is based in biology.

Can there be non-biological intelligence? People imagined disembodied consciousness and pre-cosmic intelligence before they understood the biological origins of consciousness.

(i) For intelligent ball lightning in works by Poul Anderson and James Blish, see Kyrie.

(ii) Anderson has post-organic intelligences in Genesis, sophotects in his Harvest of Stars Tetralogy and consciousness-level computers in his Technic History.

(iii) For whether spirits are a kind of energy, see Matter And Energy.

(iv) For more on Blish's energy beings and also on CS Lewis's eldila, see Angels And Demons. The eldila:

"...had some kind of material vehicle whose presence could (in principle) be scientifically verified."

-CS Lewis, Perelandra IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (Lonodon, 1990), pp. 145-348 AT 1, p. 151.

 

(v) Fred Hoyle has an intelligent interstellar gas cloud in The Black Cloud.

 

(vi) Olaf Stapledon has intelligent nebulae in Nebula Maker and Star Maker.

 

Poul Anderson keeps good literary company.

Shared Experience II

See Shared Experience.

Flandry to Miriam:

"'Your chief purpose has been to learn how to feel and think like her, hasn't it?'" (p. 100)

If the shared experience had been brought about by Chereionite telepathy, then Miriam would know what Yewwl thought because both Yewwl's momentary thoughts and Yewwl's understanding of them would have been exactly reproduced inside Miriam's brain. However, what is happening is that an approximation of Yewwl's sensory inputs is being transmitted into Miriam's brain. After that, it is Miriam's memories, concepts and understanding that must interpret the data. Thus, the end result is nothing like Yewwl's thoughts about her experiences. However, Miriam's:

"...intellect, imagination, empathy developed through year after year..." (p. 99)

- can work hard at learning how Yewwl feels and thinks especially since these two beings also converse directly with each other. Yewwl alone hears Miriam's voice inside her own head.

Shared Experience

A Stone In Heaven, VI.

The Ramnuan, Yewwl, wears a collar. On it, a TV camera points in the same direction as her eyes. A microphone receives whatever sounds she hears. Other instruments detect temperature, vibrations, scents etc. The collar transmits a radio signal, detected and relayed by comsats. A computer receives the signal and reconverts it into sense-data. Miriam wears a helmet, views a screen and holds her hands flat on vibrant plates. Her brain translates the input into an approximation of Yewwl's sensory experiences although not of the latter's thought processes:

"'It's not telepathy,' she said. 'The channel won't carry but a tiny fraction of the total information. Most of what I experience is actually my own intuition, filling in the gaps. I've spent my career training that intuition. I'm trying to discover how accurate it really is.'" (p. 100)

Or how inaccurate?

Everard And Flandry

Manse Everard of the Time Patrol and Dominic Flandry in the Technic History are dissimilar characters who nevertheless share certain commendable personal qualities.

Everard to his colleague, Janne Floris:

"'I guess I can mind my manners.''

"If you mind yours!"

-Poul Anderson, "Star of the Sea" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 467-640 AT 6, p. 530.

Flandry to Miriam Abrams:

"'I can mind my manners.'"

-A Stone In Heaven, VI, pp. 97-98.

Yet another resonance between timelines. A second shared quality is their common ability to work hard as intelligence agents.

Flandry tells Miriam:

"'Nobody is strong in every department, and no single department is at the core of life.'" (p. 98)

How long does it take some of us to realize that?

Miriam is less good at some human responses because she has spent so long sharing the consciousness of a Ramnuan. How she does that is a suitable subject for a further post that might wait till we have walked. Still under national lockdown, we nevertheless take long, socially distanced walks for exercise.

Three Stages Of Flandry

When we become familiar with its contents, the second half of Poul Anderson's Technic History seems not lengthy but compact:

Young Flandry (three novels)

- one non-Flandry volume (story + novel)

Captain Flandry (two collections and one novel)

Admiral Flandry (two novels)

- one post-Flandry collection

 

Flandry is taught by Max Abrams in Ensign Flandry, the first Young Flandry novel, and by Chunderban Desai in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, the Captain Flandry novel. See "Know A Man By His Heroes II" and "Theory And Practice II," both here. Desai expounds the historical theory of John K. Hord without naming him. Hord is the dedicatee of A Stone In Heaven, the first Admiral Flandry novel.

Flandry, as Captain, already intuits the gist of Hord's theory. See Indian Summer II. He imparts this intuitive understanding to Kit as Captain Flandry and, much later, explains the developed theory to Miriam/Banner as Admiral Flandry.

SF Cliches

If mankind really does have any kind of interstellar or galactic future, will that future be anything like what many sf writers have imagined? It is not just that many individual writers just happened to imagine the same kinds of things. Rather, a set of convenient assumptions and cliches emerged within the literary ghetto of genre sf whereas Wells and others had written imaginative fiction before Gernsback created the ghetto.

The cliches are:

interstellar travel that is not only faster than light but also easy and cheap;

governments and other organizations able to operate on an interstellar scale;

many inhabitable but uninhabited extra-solar planets, easily colonized;

easily comprehensible humanoid aliens engaging in the kinds of economic, political etc interactions that are familiar from human history.

I ask this because, in Poul Anderson's A Stone In Heaven, Dominic Flandry and Miriam Abrams drink and talk in a luxuriously appointed bar in a spaceship that flies itself between stars at many times light speed. Is that remotely plausible - or does it sound just a little too easy? I hope that, by the end of this century, mankind will have resolved some pressing problems on Earth and will have moved out into the Solar System but I really do not expect spaceships like Flandry's, do you?

It is the prerogative, indeed the responsibility, of sf writers to question and challenge every assumption and cliche. Fortunately for us, Poul Anderson:

wrote very high quality genre sf;

combined it with speculative fiction;

followed his Technic History with The Boat Of A Million Years, the Harvest of Stars Tetralogy and Genesis, all based on completely different futuristic premises.

Purpose

A Stone In Heaven, VI.

Miriam Abrams says:

"'But Creation must have a purpose.'" (p. 87)

I quoted her here but did not respond adequately to her statement - although we have discussed this kind of issue often enough before! The word "Creation" begs the question. If someone created the universe, then no doubt they created it for some purpose but was it created? Purposes exist within conscious beings within the universe so how could the universe as a whole have any purpose? Any conscious beings that created this universe must have evolved in some previous universe so did it have a purpose?

Does this universe look as if the purpose of stellar fusion is to synthesize heavy elements that can become the basis of life and consciousness? Life is only temporary, local negative entropy and consciousness is a mere by-product of undirected natural selection. Cosmic processes are complicated but do not seem to be purposive.

A Four Stage Literary Progression

(i) Many authors write many works about one-off characters. 

(ii) Fewer, although still very many, fictional characters graduate from one-off to series status. 

(iii) Some series characters become successful and well-known, their regular readers anticipating further installments. 

(iv) Some successful series characters become universally known. Everyone (except time travelers from the future: see Poul Anderson's The Corridors Of Time) has heard of James Bond even those who may never have read any of the books or seen any of the films. Screen adaptations facilitate the transition from stage (iii) to stage (iv).

Poul Anderson's major series characters have made it to stage (iii), at least among sf readers. If an author continues to write a series that has reached either stage (iii) or stage (iv), then he knows in advance that what he writes will be widely read and also that his characters' names have become significant to a reading public. When, at the end of Mirkheim, Nicholas van Rijn assesses the then current state of Technic civilization before reaffirming his own immediate plans and articulating some more tentative anticipations, his words mean a lot to a lot of us. This is not just any character speaking. This is van Rijn.

Ian Fleming concluded his last novel with:

"For James Bond, the same view would always pall." (See Other Agents.)

By then, Fleming had some idea of what the name, "James Bond," was coming to mean to everyone.

See also Intertextualities.

To See You Again II

This is not quite the same thing but here goes. Christopher Holm, having featured as a major character in a single novel, The People Of The Wind, unexpectedly shows up again in The Earth Book Of Stormgate but not as a character in any of the stories. Instead, he has moved off-stage/behind the scenes to become one of the authors! As such, he is named in three of Hloch's introductions.

Any story implicitly raises two questions. What does the story tell us? How did the story come to be told? Often, the second question is not addressed. Sometimes, its answer is out in the open, e.g., Doctor Watson (or some other first person narrator) tells us! Poul Anderson's Technic History has a truly impressive list of, usually named, individuals who either introduce or narrate stories without appearing in them:

Francis L. Minamoto

Hloch of Stormgate Choth

Maeve Downey (she is, just slightly, present in the text)

A.A. Craig

Vance Hall

Noah Arkwright

Judith Lundgren

unnamed author(s) of The Man Who Counts

Le Matelot

Urwain the Wide-Faring

Donvar Ayeghen

Michael Karageorge (Hank Davis)

These are our historical sources. James Ching writes the story that he appears in whereas Christopher Holm appears in one Technic History installment but writes or co-writes three others.

In some works - going outside the Technic History -, the answer to that question of how the story came to be told becomes quite elaborate. Thus, Steve Mauchek telepathically broadcasts Operation Chaos between timelines but then writes Operation Luna and seals the manuscript for a century. See Three Narratives.

To See You Again

When we have seen or read about a well-beloved character for what was to have been the last time, there is nothing better than unexpectedly encountering that character again. This happens in Poul Anderson's Technic History, particularly in its original reading order:

Mirkheim had concluded a Polesotechnic League Tetralogy but van Rijn and the trader team reappeared in The Earth Book Of Stormgate;

in A Stone In Heaven, Miriam Abrams tells us that her father, Max, has died but later reminisces about him sitting in his armchair while solemnly telling his young daughter about loyalty - we saw him mentoring Flandry and now, retroactively, he mentors Miriam;

although A Stone In Heaven is the last full novel about Dominic Flandry, he cameos in The Game Of Empire about his daughter, Diana Crowfeather.

However, none of this prevents the Technic History from continuing for millennia after the deaths of all these series characters.

Loyalties

A Stone In Heaven, III, p. 52.

Dominic Flandry asks himself who or what he is loyal to - neither to faithless Emperor Gerhart nor to the Terran Empire that has become a walking corpse. Nevertheless, he formulates an adequate list:

the Pax;

security for some generations before the Long Night;

his corps;

his satisfying job;

a tomb on Dennitza;

various memories.

 

For previous discussion of the issue of loyalty, see:

 

The Wisdom Of Max Abrams

Loyalty Rewarded

Chee Lan's Loyalty

This is a major issue of the Technic History. David Falkayn makes a pivotal decision about loyalties in "Lodestar" and again in Mirkheim.

Untold Flandry

A Stone In Heaven, V.

Fourteen years have elapsed between A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, the end of the Captain Flandry series, and A Stone In Heaven, when Flandry has become an Admiral. How many novels could have been set in that fourteen year period? One for each year? What has Flandry done in that time? There are two clues.

Cairncross thinks:

"...Dietrich relied on him too, occasionally." (p. 68)

Dietrich was Emperor between his father, Hans, and his brother, Gerhart, who is the last Terran Emperor that we see, although Crown Prince Karl waits in the wings.

Gerhart says:

"'Since the middle of my father's reign, he has in effect been dreaming up his own assignments, and ruling over a tight-knit staff who report to nobody else. His conduct hasn't been insubordinate, but sometimes it has come close.'" (ibid.)

That is intriguing enough. In Valhalla, my colleagues in the Bentham Grammar School Association would play cricket every day. I would read all the untold tales of Dominic Flandry which Poul Anderson would write effortlessly while multitasking other projects.

Flandry Researches Hermes

A Stone In Heaven, III.

Admiral Dominic Flandry researches the planet Hermes. Thus, we read a historical summary of events previously recounted in a novel, Mirkheim:

social stratification and resistance;

the Babur War;

protectorship of Babur;

stewardship of Mirkheim;

social reforms.

 

No individuals are mentioned. The narrative continues after the end of Mirkheim:

 

Hermetian colonization of nearby planetary systems;

the Troubles;

Hermetian militarization;

Imperial annexation of Mirkheim;

Hermetian riots;

Imperial restoration of order;

a current Duke possibly harboring Imperial ambitions...

 

That other planetary source of wealth, Satan, is not mentioned.

Yet again, we appreciate the temporal unity and continuity of Poul Anderson's Technic History.